


Timing Is Everything

by Purpleyin



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All kinds of messed up, Alternate Timelines, Anger, Angry Barry Allen, Angry Sex, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Dark Barry Allen, Depression, Dominance, Doppelcest, Dubious Consent, Future Fic, Hate Sex, Heavy Angst, Injury, M/M, MCD is all memories and nightmares, Mind Games, Nightmares, Obsession, Past Barry/Iris, Savitar is the ultimate mind game, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Self-cest, Selfcest, Twisted, dub-con near the start, sort of a pain kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 09:10:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15045692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purpleyin/pseuds/Purpleyin
Summary: Darkfic smut, featuring a very messed up future Barry of the 3x19 timeline coming face to face with Savitar in an encounter happening a while before he defeats him. Knowing the truth doesn't help him one bit, it's worse than he imagined, it's inescapable.





	Timing Is Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirtydarkness418](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtydarkness418/gifts).



> Written as part of DCCWrarepairswap, for dirtydarkness418. With the prompt - Savitar/Barry - they have a run in before Savitar is captured in 2020 – smut. 
> 
> There's also some angst in the setup to the smut, and in the aftermath, because of how twisted it all is, but I hope it's still liked.
> 
> Content warnings for selfcest, violence (canon typical level but some is described more), injury, sort of a pain kink, nightmares, depression, dub-con at the start of the encounter, angry sex and generally being a pretty dark and twisted fic. Also references past Barry/Iris.
> 
> Thanks to both [anyrei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyrei/pseuds/anyrei) and [unwittingcatalyst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwittingcatalyst/pseuds/unwittingcatalyst) for the huge help betareading.

 

Barry doesn't get any decent rest anymore. He's used to waking up almost as tired as he is when he lays down to sleep. He has enough to get by. He pushes himself harder, his body taking the abuse. There's ever more people to save, and increasing amounts of danger, plus the cuts and bruises to go with it; an endless cycle of blood and healing. He knows he's constantly stressed and that doesn't help but he doesn't care, he can't stop yet. Even in his dreams he doesn't escape the nightmare he's living.

Every terror he's ever faced melds together in his imagination. He sees Savitar stepping out of his suit, to become a silhouette morphing into the Black Flash of Zolomon, who pulls that cowl back to reveal the half-rotted face of Thawne. Those dreams have his fear all messed up into one bundle, unravelling each night a little more but it never ends, he's never run out of the panic that has him waking up panting, alert, searching for the threat in the dark.

In his dreams, he is screaming as Patty is getting stabbed, blood blooming across a white shirt in the pipeline and his dad is consumed by a tsunami, words of warning eaten by the rushing wall of water.

In his dreams, Joe is swept up in a tornado as Barry watches powerless to stop it and Iris is falling off a building, hair spread out around her like it would on their pillows, his arm reaching out too late to get to her.

In his dreams, Zoom is reaching through Cisco's heart with joy on his face and Barry feels his limbs turn to ice, minute cracks appearing on his stopped blue hands as he looks down at them, the cold touch of Killer Frost to his back mirroring what he sees in front, like a grasp around his heart.

In his dreams, he is kneeling over the pale corpse of Eddie, bloody knife in his hands, as his mother towers over him in his childhood living room, chiding him with “Who’s the villain now, Barry?” and he's mute, he can’t answer her.

In his dreams, he never saves any of them; too late, too useless, too weak. He feels full of dread every time it happens again, his brain hitting repeat like it wants to figure out how to grapple with his failure and it never manages to do better than reality. The fear fills him to the brim at the scenes he sees, overflowing until the emotions become near meaningless with their constancy and he is desolate.

He doesn't dream about _the_ moment Iris died. He dreams iterations of it, he dreams about the choking fear, the sickness twisting in his gut at knowing he couldn't prevent it. It's rare he dreams about anything else than this type of terror he continually battles inside. He remembers nothing enjoyable from his dreams, except the completion of killing Savitar occasionally. It's not a pleasant dream by far, but it's satisfying, seeing vengeance enacted. He feels amped up afterwards, ready to get out there and _do_.

Sometimes he dreams of Iris, of the last few weeks and taking the sweetness where they could. He dreams of being with her, a fantasy too often interrupted by a cruel twist that corrupts the memories with every time he relives them – the vision of her underneath him is spotted with blood, the spear that killed her through his heart then instead. It isn't surprising to him when he feels like he's died too, only fitting he dreams it true.

 

* * *

 

 

Every few weeks, he finds Savitar on the streets of Central City destroying another place once dear to Barry. It's nothing more than a calculated ambush he's allowed to trip into, Savitar likes to amuse himself with this conflict, overconfident. Savitar _is_ consistently faster, no matter how hard Barry trains, and Barry invariably comes away from it worse off and beaten down, with more of Savitar's accusatory words reverberating around his head. But he does come away from the fights, Savitar wins in spirit but Barry survives another day.

Again he stands before Savitar, intent to at least do damage to him. He's been studying footage of their fights - the details average CCTV cameras can record - and the data downloaded from his suit he'd managed to convince Cisco to analyze, despite how strained things are between them. Cisco thinks he's obsessing over Savitar, neglecting his other duties as a result, but Barry knows he has his priorities straight: Savitar is still their biggest threat, he _needs_ to be taken out.

Thanks to the patterns found by Cisco's algorithm, he knows more about how Savitar moves than ever before. He knows what tricks he needs to learn from him and what moves of his own Savitar uses against him at speed. He feels like he might finally be able to predict him well enough to avoid a strategic retreat before he gets an important strike in.

He avoids the first few hits and deflects a few more with his arms that will be bruised by them, but Savitar is spurred on by this and it gets harder to figure out where he's coming from next, becoming less predictable. The maw of Savitar's suit flares out mechanically as there is a modified scream of rage erupting from him. He extends the metal claw with a clunk and Barry feels nauseous at the sight of it but fights past that feeling.

“Is it like you remember, Barry? Does it feel like your dreams?“

He doesn't understand the implication, how it's foreshadowing, until Savitar lunges at him and there is a piercing pain in his shoulder. Suddenly he's pinned to the wall by the spear, bones shattered around the blade.

It's all too familiar a feeling, the hit aimed exactly where Savitar pierced him years before. The familiarity intertwines unreasonably with his recollections, of memory and dream alike, swimming around in the cloud of his mind, muddled in his agony. He remembers the same pain back then and the twinned memory of Iris walking away from him. He remembers it piercing her in front of him, losing her again. And it pierces him now, like it pierced Iris. It's inside him like it penetrates him in his dreams, like he is inside Iris as it does. He's had that dream over and over, and it disturbs him to find this link between the two, to feel an unwelcome hardness stirring at the sting - his ecstasy distorted by the recurrent theme of pain until his anatomy doesn't know how to respond appropriately.

Savitar notices the bulge in his suit and laughs, echoing weirdly in that rumbling fateful voice of his. He withdraws the spear and speeds away, humiliation successful. Barry slides down to the floor of the alley, ashamed and angry, left nursing his shoulder. He cradles his right arm as he slinks back to S.T.A.R. Labs to deal with his injury alone.

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes later from fretful sleep to the hulking presence of Savitar in the corner of his bedroom. His heart pounds in his chest. In the opposite corner _he_ sits. His time remnant. It takes a few seconds for it to click. At first he thinks they're in league. But no, the suit doesn't move, lifelessly discarded there. It's open, waiting for its occupant.

“You're thinking I'm him. The other you you left to rot, but that's not _exactly_ true. He's still out there somewhere. I've seen a lot more than he has, had another go around.“ This is said with a jerk of his head, a not quite nod, and a circling gesture from his hand, entirely casual about these facts that have Barry's head spinning. “I've seen everything that happened. As you, as me, _plenty_ of perspective. I know how you feel, how you burn with hate. It burns in me too.“

Barry has him against the wall in an instant, the flare of anger driving him forward. Savitar only smirks and Barry feels awkwardly exposed, clad in his boxers alone. It doesn’t seem to matter to Savitar that Barry has him trapped, with his back against the partition, effectively in a chokehold.

“How've you been sleeping, Barry? How's the shoulder?“ he asks with faux concern, clearly not caring. Except it turns out the care is the opposite kind, a perverse interest – Savitar manages to get his hand up fast enough to press a thumb against the mostly healed but still tender wound, digging into it, causing Barry to grunt in pain. He doesn't release his hold on Savitar's throat though, in fact he presses a little harder. Savitar struggles to speak, yet is not put off, keeping his own hold on the wound.

“You feel like you're dead inside, without her. It was why you were willing to sacrifice so many time remnants. Only, you didn't get to die, I didn't get to either. We had unfinished business. No rest for the wicked,“ Savitar continues dramatically, mocking him. “ But that-“ he exclaims as he presses in again, “-makes you feel alive. For a second.“

Savitar stares at him, silent but his expression showing amusement. He's awaiting Barry's response, the denial he doesn't have in him because, like everything Savitar has said, it _is_ true. He'd wondered before how Savitar could know them all so intimately, had known what he would say, known what they had planned, perpetually one step ahead and foiling them. It makes perfect, horrific, sense now.

“You're dead,“ he practically hisses.

“Not yet. You hurt me, it hurts you,“ he says, waving over to the suit. “Or more accurately, it hurts everyone in a twenty mile radius. Say hello to my insurance policy. You'd never get them all out in time. And if you take me anywhere else without it, against my will, same deal. No, I'm here to offer you something.“

“There's nothing you have that I want. You already took everything I had.“

“Funny, because I would have said the same to you,“ Savitar all but spits back, “ You don't even appreciate what you have left, what _I_ was denied.“

There is venom in his words in that moment, each of them hating the other just as much, but then Savitar's face warps into a more considered look, something oddly neutral, as if he's studying Barry. Savitar shifts his frame a little too, adjusts his position under the arm against his neck, settling into it, like he's trying to make it comfortable in a strange way.

“We both want to feel alive. Vengeance is fine for the day to day, but it doesn't keep you warm at night.“

That's when Barry feels the entirely unexpected thigh rubbing against his groin. He's still somewhat erect from his dream of Iris, and amped up from the confrontation. Barry's eyes flutter shut briefly, gasping at how great it feels. The action throws him off, utterly confused by this turn of events, and he drops the arm holding Savitar, stepping back abruptly, though he's still not out of Savitar's reach.

Barry's mind is still trying to process what's happening when Savitar roughly handles him, their positions reversed. Barry finds his back pressed against the wall and Savitar pressed against him, and he doesn't know how to respond. He'd been prepared for a fight, adrenaline coursing through his veins but now he's stuck on the sensation of Savitar's hard-on rubbing against his through the layers of denim and cotton between them.

He's completely unprepared for the feel of Savitar's lips descending on his own, kissing hungrily. Savitar is equally demanding with his hands: they roam across the expanse of exposed skin and they touch all the right places because he knows him like he knows himself. He scratches his nails across Barry's chest, zigzagging his touch down to scarcely past his naval but not much lower, not low enough as what might be expected. He presses his hands against Barry's sides, first firm, then lightly, before he ghosts across the small of his back gently and then tears up his back in contrast.

Barry arches up, pressing inadvertently harder against Savitar, at the feel of a vibrating hand slipped around and up the back of his boxers, teasing at the crack of his ass.

“Still want to kill me?“ Savitar questions him huskily, breath hot in his ear.

He can't see Savitar's face to judge what he expects and he's still reeling from everything Savitar has done in the last few minutes – with how he's responded to it - but nothing changes how he feels. He hates him with as much passion as he can summon.

“That'll never stop being true.“

Savitar withdraws and he thinks for a second he's going in for another searing kiss, but he merely smiles wryly at Barry.

“But tonight, I get a pass?“ he asks, entertained in some way by Barry's hate. His eyes are dark and lustful as he waits for the answer he wants. Savitar's watching him like he's prey, to be toyed with and Barry isn't okay with that. He's done with being played, manipulated into a weaker position by mind games.

Too many people have tried that tactic with him – Eobard, Zoom, Savitar - all taking advantage of him, using his goodness or his willingness to follow the rules, against him. Savitar wants something different this time, something he feels sure to get knowing the darkness in him, in _them_. Barry just wants to win for once, to have the upper hand. He doesn't care how he achieves it, after all, he has nothing left to lose. If he can't kill him right now, making Savitar submit to him is a sadistic second best.

Barry pushes back, pushes the grinning Savitar onto the bed and there ensues a struggle for dominance. In the tussle they make out angrily and messily, a continuous clash of lips and teeth and tongues, resulting in bitten lips, bitten tongues, much swearing and stifled moans. Their hands alternate between a fight to pull each other closer and tearing at the remaining clothes – mostly Savitar's - until they are stark naked.

When there is nothing between them Barry is aware of the slide of skin on skin, the sheen of sweat in places and the wetness of his and Savitar's arousal alike. Savitar licks his hand, thoroughly coating it, a stroke up his manhood and then does the same for Barry's, making his cock glide blissfully against Savitar's as the man takes them both in hand. As Savitar continues to pumps up and down, Barry closes his eyes, focused on the sensation – it could be anyone doing this to him. But it isn't. He doesn't want to let go of his purpose, his hate. The desire in his body is indiscriminate but the desire in his mind is for vengeance in whatever form it takes.

He rolls them on their sides suddenly and catching Savitar off guard, he manages to switch sides quickly and flips him over. Barry pins him, arms above his head, his whole body weighing Savitar down. He cock presses into Savitar's ass and he vibrates, causing Savitar to writhe under him, overcome and attempting to close the distance, to get more of it, of him. Barry stops vibrating, taking away the very thing Savitar seems to want so much and decides to slide his cock up and down between his butt cheeks. He ignores the sounds coming out of his doppelgangers mouth, and focuses on taking his own pleasure until _he_ is desperate for more.

Worked up well and good, he eventually lets one hand free of Savitar in order to line his erection up with Savitar's asshole. Pressing in a little he finds him relaxed and much slicker than expected.

“You lubed up before this,“ he states, slightly dazed by this information.

“You think I didn't foresee this little eventuality. You've screwed me enough as it is. I'm always one step ahead of you, Barry,“ Savitar taunts.

Barry flushes with a heated annoyance at how Savitar thinks he knows him so well, that he knew to prepare for this. But he's still the one on top, the one in control. He vibrates his dick as he rocks into Savitar, easing him open and sheathing his member further inside Savitar bit by bit. And then he stops, waiting until Savitar is bucking back against him what little he can pressed into the bed by Barry's weight. He has him eager for more and entirely at his mercy.

He starts to fuck him slow. Pulling out in a tortuously protracted manner and then sliding to his hilt in a single smooth yet unhurried thrust. He's intent to build it up, trying to control the pace but as he goes quicker he's getting breathless with the concentration, resisting the urge to go even faster like he wants to.

Savitar is needy beneath him, attempting to force more contact on his own terms. His pushing up into Barry's thrusts is teasing him, making the desire to increase pace very tempting, and though he's resolute not to go faster, he changes to a touch slow but much harder, more force to press Savitar back into the bed with each drive into him. The moans it draws out of Savitar are rather sinful and only serve to turn Barry on more, his control faltering because he's managed to build the anticipation up for himself as well.

He's been trying so hard to deny Savitar the indulgence of what he wants in the way he wants, everything on Barry's own terms instead, but in doing so he's edged them both expertly. Savitar seems to be getting off almost as much from motion itself he realizes, the press of each thrust likely pushing his sensitive shaft against the bed itself. That's the point at which he stops caring about how or why and simply does what feels good. As he loses himself in the racing rhythm he wants, he can tell he must be hitting the spot for Savitar too, hearing the whining desperation and mumbled encouragement from him. But Barry isn't thinking about anything else but his own gratification, lost in it. He isn't thinking at all and he has no reaction when Savitar starts vibrating, all of him vibrating - vibrating around his cock - and he comes abruptly, no stopping it.

 _It's over_ , he thinks dully, as he disentangles from the boneless form of Savitar, who stretches out lazily once he's free. Part of him feels triumphant, but it's a short-lived victory as he registers he's disgusted with what he's done, for stooping to the same base level when he's meant to be better than this.

Savitar proves he isn't. Perhaps he'd been kidding himself he ever was. Something in them is lost forever, a missing piece inside their battered selves that leaves them raw around the festering wound and marring what remains.

His eyes dance over the spectacle of Savitar bare on the bed. He's spread across it haphazardly, irreverent smile fixed on his face, acting like he owns the space. The sheets are cum stained where he'd been writhing about.

“It's been so long since I slept here,“ he declares, patting the mattress fondly, reveling in this aftermath like it's _his_ victory.

Barry realizes, a swift epiphany crashing down on him, that he was never in control. Once again everything was orchestrated to Savitar's plan. A mind game beyond the one he'd discerned. A way to take another place away from Barry, invading his home, so he has no refuge.

“You got what you came for. Get out!“

Savitar dresses in no hurry as Barry looks resolutely at the floor, standing his ground, silently fuming. He can't look at him, at the bed, at anything, almost breaking down into tears at what he's become. But he holds out against the despair, dragging up the last of his strength to wait until Savitar is gone. Naturally, Savitar can't resist having the last word.

“We were fucked up from the start, you just wouldn't let yourself feel it. Playing at a hero doesn't change what's in you, this has always been in you. Thawne saw it. Zoom saw it. _I_ see it. Good luck living in denial now you've literally fucked yourself.“

Savitar is gone in a blink, the shadows empty of his specter.

Now Barry stumbles out, out of the forsaken room, grabbing a few mismatched garments to clothe himself with as he leaves. The irrational drives him away from the apartment. In need of a shower, he hesitates for a moment, but that requirement is warring with the stronger instinctual need be anywhere but here. _Run._

He's more determined than ever to end Savitar, but underneath that burning desire, he's almost numb. What remains is a new fear, of what he was apparently destined to be from the very beginning.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fic is rebloggable on tumblr [here](https://purpleyin.tumblr.com/post/175244209170/the-flash-fic-timing-is-everything-11).


End file.
